


Obvious In Retrospect

by NoisyNoiverns



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Canon Is Stupid, Fix-It of Sorts, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 11:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5927106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody assumed Tazzik didn't catch on that the title of Shadow Broker had changed hands. Frankly, he's rather insulted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Obvious In Retrospect

It started with Vasir.

Tazzik didn’t think anything of it when he got word she’d been dispatched after T’Soni. He’d heard through more than a few agents and networks of his own that the asari was getting too close for the Broker’s comfort. Personally, he didn’t care. The Broker had only had _Vasir_ go after T’Soni, after all; if there was any _true_ danger, it would be _him_ hunting her. That wasn’t even his own ego telling him that. He was the Broker’s _best_ , and everyone getting a beautiful, beautiful pile of credits from the Broker knew it.

Then Vasir called for reinforcements. That was bad.

Then Vasir stopped reporting entirely. That was _really_ bad.

Still, the Broker could handle themselves. He could be patient. There was no need to panic. All he had to do was wait and watch the networks.

There was a few Sur’Kesh weeks of silence. No news about T’Soni, no word from the Broker about whether or not the threat was neutralized, no orders to move in for the kill. He did his work, collected his paycheck, lied through his teeth to his brother about whether or not he’d be back on Zaodurus for Betau (he would, but he hated that particular brother and didn’t want to ruin the holiday by running into him), and continued on like nothing was any different.

Then he heard from a few agents on base he’d paid off that they were under attack by a small squad of an asari, a human, and a turian. And, naturally, before they could confirm any identities for him, their comms cut out. Probably dead.

He had to wonder if maybe the priests had been right and the gods really were taking vengeance for never going to temple. Stupid and incredibly doubtful, but he’d been known to consider weirder when things went wrong. Not that he’d ever tell his own uncle that he considered the notion of divine retribution “stupid and incredibly doubtful,” of course.

And then the total blackout. No line to the Broker, no comms from any other agent, nothing.

Blackouts happened now and then. With Hagalaz, it was bound to. He wouldn’t have thought anything of it, if it weren’t for the fighting beforehand. A fight followed by a blackout was hardly a sign of inclement weather fucking with comms. Something was wrong.

He said nothing on the general channel. That would be stupid, and giving away too much. Besides, his voice scared other agents. It was far, far too deep, more fitting for a krogan, or perhaps a large turian. Most hoped that a salarian his size would at least sound like a salarian, if only for one shred of normalcy. No such luck. He knew better than he was entirely comfortable exactly how quickly shudders ran down spines at the sound of his voice; speaking now would just throw everyone off and make them think something was up.

Instead, he waited until the official explanation had gone through, then opened a private channel, waited for recognition, and spoke with the same level calmness any salarian worth their eye membranes would know meant suspicion. “This is Tazzik,” he said. “What happened?”

He counted the seconds- Sur’Kesh time, because galactic standard was simply too slow for any sort of reasonable social inference. They were only a fraction faster than galactic standard seconds, but the difference was plenty. Five seconds. Ten. Twenty.

The answer came at twenty-seven and a half Sur’Kesh seconds, four seconds too slow to mean truth. “An equipment malfunction. Nothing more, nothing less. Get back to work, Tazzik.”

The channel cut out, and Tazzik frowned. Vasir, reports of an attack, a total blackout, the broker taking almost thirty seconds to answer him, and he was expected to believe it was just an equipment malfunction?

It was one thing to doubt his intelligence. Being the size of a krogan tended to make people assume you were as smart as one, as he’d unfortunately figured out when he was seven. But it was another matter entirely to expect him to swallow such an obvious lie.

Still, it wouldn’t do to simply march in and demand answers. That wasn’t how he operated anyway. He could be patient. He’d wait, gather more clues, maybe even contact a few rival information dealers, ones his people kept a carefully-guarded secret so as not to give away all their tricks (aliens always thought it was such a _scandal_ when dalatrasses traded information, when really, it would be more of a scandal if they _didn’t_ ). He’d puzzle it out eventually.

And when he did, he was going to revel in it.

* * *

 

For the love of the gods, how brain-dead did they think he _was?_

They’d had the drell locked up for two years, torturing him for information. Tazzik had beaten him within an inch of his life and put him there himself. And now suddenly, he was up and about and actually giving _orders_ with only the vaguest, “There’s been a change of plan” for an explanation.

Yeah. There’d been a change in _something_ , alright.

It was impressive how happy the other agencies were to work with him once he’d explained the situation. He’d struck a deal with one operating out of Mannovai; risky, given their status as a favored spy for the councilor and the STG’s public enemy number one in that particular cluster, but he needed results, and anyone who could be trusted to glean information on top-secret missions for the Council could certainly scrounge up some clues as to what had happened on Hagalaz. They’d agreed to trade whatever they found, starting with what had happened to Vasir and going from there, in exchange for some of the less vital information he had about the Broker’s operations.

They also offered a quick and easy switch of employment if the Broker found out he’d traded secrets. Clever, but ominous. He had to wonder just how many times they’d done similar stunts.

Still, the investigation proved useful. Vasir had been after T’Soni, and some of T’Soni’s friends had shown up to help; he knew that much. Shoot-outs and building bombings had a nasty tendency to make the news. According to the agents, following the fight with Vasir, T’Soni and company had rushed off- leaving more than enough witnesses to gossip with and evidence in offices to gather. Apparently, T’Soni’s friends had brought word that the drell Feron was alive, and one of her own informants had managed to locate the Broker’s base.

“And, based on the information you so graciously supplied us with,” said the agent who’d contacted him, a tiny female who barely made it to the middle of his torso and bore the tattoos of a clan Vaehirn politician, “you know as well as I do what they did with that data.”

Unfortunately, he very much did.

It was three months after the total blackout when he made his move. It was simple, nothing dramatic: he merely opened a private comm channel to the Broker under the guise of reporting in after another mission, waited for the signal to go, and said, “I know it’s you, T’Soni.”

The line went dead silent; he only knew it was still up because he could hear just the faintest trace of breathing. Good. “Here’s how this is going to work,” he said, idly starting to clean his grenade launcher. “I’m going to meet you on Hagalaz. The drell can come, too, he’s just as guilty as you are. And if you try to have me killed at any point, it’s not going to be a happy meeting.”

“What do you want, Tazzik?”

_“Want?”_ He snorted. “I _want_ you to stop thinking I’m such an idiot I can’t see what’s right in front of me. I’ll see you on Hagalaz.”

* * *

 

Tazzik hated Hagalaz. Every instinct told him to flee the storm, hide deep below the surface until the air was still and the waters calm. But if he tried that, he’d be dead faster than he could twitch an eye. So he did his best to avoid the planet, preferring to take his orders over comm than in person. This just happened to be a special situation.

The agents on the ship wisely hit the wall as he approached. Nobody wanted to get in the way of the Broker’s top agent, especially not when said top agent was the size of a krogan and had the temperament to match. So he was able to make it to the command center without incident, just the occasional frightened murmur of his name or inattentive agent getting yanked out of his path by a friend.

It was good to be big.

Feron was waiting for him at the door. He chose to take that as a sign they’d given up trying to pretend nothing was wrong. _Finally_. The drell scowled at him and puffed out his chest. Some sort of aggression display?

How _adorable_.

He jerked back his shoulders and made like he was going to lunge for him, grinning in spite of himself when Feron jumped back far enough to smack his head against the wall behind him. “That’s what I thought,” he rumbled, straightening back up and continuing on like nothing had happened.

The room was deserted when he walked in. The ocular implants he’d gotten ages ago automatically whirred to life, hunting for signs of life besides the warmth of the various terminals. “Come out, come out, little _kanopa_ ,” he called, more under his breath than anything.

“‘Bright-eyes’?” came a voice from across the room, and he turned his head to see T’Soni standing at the upper platform, hands gripping the rail. “Is that supposed to flatter me?”

He smiled, flicking his left membrane. “Not in the slightest.”

He slowly paced towards the middle of the room as T’Soni walked down the stairs, neither of them breaking eye contact. Admittedly, he was a little surprised she knew what the term meant. Few bothered to attempt to learn salarian closed dialects, due to the lack of ability to hear the hypersonic frequencies that hid the nuances and inflections necessary for understanding. But then, the hypersonic channel was where it was held that _kanopa_ was an insult, a warning; T’Soni knew the word, but she couldn’t hear what he meant. He still held the advantage.

He waited for her to speak first. Basic rules of societal engagement: If you start a confrontation, you wait for the other party to respond.

“How did you know?” she asked when she reached the base of the stairs, folding her arms across her chest.

He rolled his shoulders and scoffed. “You weren’t exactly subtle.”

“I thought I closed all the breaches-”

He pointed at Feron.

She blinked. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

She slowly shook her head and raised a hand to her brow. “I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me.”

“I can think of several reasons, but I’m no swampling.”

“What?”

“And you call yourself a xenoanthropologist. Do you need a calculator for logarithms, too?”

“My focus was archaeology with a focus on Prothean culture, not salarian evolution. And no, I don’t.”

Feron shook his head. “Would you nerds get to the point?”

“Right, yes, of course.” T’Soni cleared her throat and glowered up at him- he had to wonder how she didn’t break her neck, given she barely made it to his waist. “Why are you here, Tazzik? You do realize you have nothing to bargain with, and if you intend to blackmail, you won’t make it off this ship alive, correct?”

He snorted. “You really think I care about what you can give me? A paycheck’s a paycheck. As long as they keep coming, you could be an abnormally large amoeba for all I give a shit.”

“Then I repeat: why are you here?”

Instead of answering, he stalked forward until she was so close he could see a vague reflection of her (more a blue blob than an actual reflection, but still) in his armor. To her credit, she stood stock-still, not budging from her pose even a smidgen.

Pity. It was more entertaining when they flinched.

He leaned down, nearly doubling over so he could look down at her. “For the past couple months, you all seem to have been operating under the assumption that I had no idea that anything was amiss. It’s _insulting_.

“ _You_ spend two years after us. _He_ spends two years in captivity. And suddenly Vasir’s down, there’s reports of an attack, a blackout, and then _he’s_ walking around giving orders while _you’ve_ disappeared. _Exactly how stupid do you think I am?”_ He snorted derisively and leaned back, folding his arms. “I don’t want shut-up money or an easy retirement. I just want some damn respect. It’s really not that _hard_.”

T’Soni furrowed her brow, not breaking eye contact, then slowly nodded. “I see. My apologies, Tazzik. I should have known better.”

“If it never happens again, we can pretend this entire conversation never happened.” He flicked one membrane and turned to head off. “Despite what our initial encounters might have told you, T’Soni, I _can_ be reasonable.”

Feron moved to get in his way, giving him the stink-eye. “And how do we know you’re not about to turn over the Broker’s identity to anyone?”

He rolled his eyes and pushed the drell out of his way. “We _just_ had a conversation about how I’m not stupid, remember?”

**Author's Note:**

> From the wiki: _"Tazzik is unaware of Liara's place as the new Shadow Broker and it can be inferred that he assumes that nothing has changed, aside from Feron becoming an asset instead of a liability."_
> 
> Given Tazzik is shown to be fairly intelligent in the comic, and how rather obvious it is that there was a change of leadership when you think about it, this seemed rather dumb to me. So I wrote this.


End file.
